Originally Posted by
Spoddy
The average passenger doesn't care what makes up the price, only what the price will be to get on the plane and get where they're going (and come back).
This is just a political movement to return to the times when airlines can advertise their cheap fare to draw you in.
I hope this fails big time. I also hope someone in Government puts up a bill to force airlines to include the fuel charge as part of the ticket. It's not like it's an option, and again, it's not like ANYONE cares how much of your ticket goes on fuel. I'd actually like to see if the airlines are charging us an appropriately accurate $ amount per the actual amount of fuel you'd burn if you go on board...
Agreed.
I can't say that I really care whether the fuel surcharges are "accurate" or not, either. Fuel is a part of the operating cost that the airline bears for that flight. It doesn't need to be broken out from the "base fare" - DL just needs to price their base fares appropriately to cover all the operating and overhead costs associated with getting me from A to B.
The fuel surcharge thing is like if I went to the store and was told that the base price for an apple is 10 cents, but oh by the way add 60 cents in fertilizer, harvesting, and washing surcharges. That's BS - the apple costs 70 cents, which includes all the work and supplies that went into growing and harvesting the thing.
Heck - even in one of the other most opaque pricing models we have, cars are priced with a base price, plus options (leather, sunroof = E+ seats, BoB food), plus taxes. But they don't further split the base price into a "base" and a "metal surcharge". It's assumed that the pieces that make up the basic vehicle are included.